‘You can be as involved as you like—’
‘Did you hear what I just said?’ he snaps, turning his back on me and striding back up the path towards the car. ‘You’d be a terrible mother, Megan. Just get rid of it.’
I go after him, walking quickly at first and then running, and when I get close enough I shove him in the back. I’m yelling at him, screaming, trying to scratch his fucking smug face and he’s laughing, fending me off with ease. I start saying the worst things I can think of. I insult his manhood, his boring wife, his ugly child.
I don’t even know why I’m so angry, because what did I expect? Anger, maybe, worry, upset. Not this. It’s not even rejection, it’s dismissal. All he wants is for me to go away – me and my child – and so I tell him, I scream at him, I’m not going away. I am going to make you pay for this. For the rest of your bloody life you’re going to be paying for this.
He’s not laughing any more.
He’s coming towards me. He has something in his hand.
I’ve fallen. I must have slipped. Hit my head on something. I think I’m going to be sick. Everything is red. I can’t get up.
One for sorrow, two for joy, three for a girl. Three for a girl. I’m stuck on three, I just can’t get any further. My head is thick with sounds, my mouth thick with blood. Three for a girl. I can hear the magpies – they’re laughing, mocking me, a raucous cackling. A tiding. Bad tidings. I can see them now, black against the sun. Not the birds, something else. Someone’s coming. Someone is speaking to me. Now look. Now look what you made me do.
RACHEL
Sunday, 18 August 2013
Afternoon
IN THE LIVING ROOM, we sit in a little triangle: Tom on the sofa, the adoring father and dutiful husband, daughter on his lap, wife at his side. And the ex-wife opposite, sipping her tea. Very civilized. I’m sitting in the leather armchair that we bought from Heal’s just after we got married – it was the first piece of furniture we got as a married couple: soft tan buttery leather, expensive, luxurious. I remember how excited I was when it was delivered. I remember curling up in it, feeling safe and happy, thinking this is what marriage is – safe, warm, comfortable.
Tom is watching me, his brow knitted. He’s working out what to do, how to fix things. He’s not worried about Anna, I can see that. I’m the problem.
‘She was a bit like you,’ he says all of a sudden. He leans back on the sofa, shifting his daughter to a more comfortable position on his lap. ‘Well, she was and she wasn’t. She had that thing … messy, you know. I can’t resist that.’ He grins at me. ‘Knight in shining armour, me.’
‘You’re no one’s knight,’ I say quietly.
‘Ah, Rach, don’t be like that. Don’t you remember? You all sad, because Daddy’s died, and just wanting someone to come home to, someone to love you? I gave you all that. I made you feel safe. Then you decided to piss it all away, but you can’t blame me for that.’
‘I can blame you for a lot of things, Tom.’
‘No, no.’ He wags a finger at me. ‘Let’s not start rewriting history. I was good to you. Sometimes … well, sometimes you forced my hand. But I was good to you. I took care of you,’ he says, and it’s only then that it really registers: he lies to himself the way he lies to me. He believes this. He actually believes that he was good to me.
The child starts to wail suddenly and loudly, and Anna gets abruptly to her feet.
‘I need to change her,’ she says. ‘Not now.’
‘She’s wet, Tom. She needs changing. Don’t be cruel.’
He looks at Anna sharply, but he hands the crying child to her. I try to catch her eye, but she won’t look at me. My heart rises into my throat as she turns to go upstairs, but it sinks again just as fast, because Tom is on his feet, his hand on her arm. ‘Do it here,’ he says. ‘You can do it here.’
Anna goes across into the kitchen and changes the child’s nappy on the table. The smell of shit fills the room, it turns my stomach.
‘Are you going to tell us why?’ I ask him. Anna stops what she’s doing and looks across at us. The room is still, quiet, save for the babbling of the child.
Tom shakes his head, almost in disbelief himself. ‘She could be very like you, Rach. She wouldn’t let things go. She didn’t know when she was over. She just … she wouldn’t listen. Remember how you always argued with me, how you always wanted the last word? Megan was like that. She wouldn’t listen.’
He shifts in his seat and leans forward, his elbows on his knees, as if he’s telling me a story. ‘When we started, it was just fun, just fucking. She led me to believe that was what she was into. But then she changed her mind. I don’t know why. She was all over the place, that girl. She’d have a bad day with Scott, or she’d just be a bit bored, and she’d start talking about us going away together, starting over, about me leaving Anna and Evie. As if I would! And if I wasn’t there on demand when she wanted me, she’d be furious, calling here, threatening me, telling me she was going to come round, that she was going to tell Anna about us.
‘But then it stopped. I was so relieved. I thought she’d finally managed to get it into her head that I wasn’t interested any longer. But then that Saturday she called, saying she needed to talk, that she had something important to tell me. I ignored her, so she started making threats again – she was going to come to the house, that sort of thing. I wasn’t too worried at first, because Anna was going out. You remember, darling? You were supposed to be going out to dinner with the girls, and I was going to babysit. I thought perhaps it wouldn’t be such a bad thing – she would come round and I’d have it out with her. I’d make her understand. But then you came along, Rachel, and fucked everything up.’
He leans back on the sofa, his legs spread wide apart, the big man, taking up space. ‘It was your fault. The whole thing was actually your fault, Rachel. Anna didn’t end up having dinner with her friends – she was back here after five minutes, upset and angry because you were out there, pissed as usual, stumbling around with some bloke outside the station. She was worried that you were going to head over here. She was worried about Evie.
‘So instead of sorting things out with Megan, I had to go out and deal with you.’ His lip curls. ‘God, the state of you. Looking like shit, stinking of wine … you tried to kiss me, do you remember?’ He pretends to gag, then starts laughing. Anna laughs, too, and I can’t tell whether she finds it funny or whether she’s trying to appease him.